Image compression algorithms generally try to reduce the number of bits required to represent digital imagery while adhering to certain quantitative and subjective image fidelity criteria. Techniques such as JPEG (an algorithm which was standardized by Joint Pictures Expert Group to compress still imagery) and other more advanced designs utilizing variable-length entropy coding are extremely susceptible to channel errors. This susceptibility may make these types of image coders useless when operated over very noisy channels or where the amount of error protection (channel coding) required would not be acceptable.
What is needed is a very high-performance image coder which is robust to channel errors when operated over the binary symmetric channel. The coder should provide state-of-the-art performance with no channel errors present and graceful degradation as channel errors increase. Additionally, the coder should be of modest complexity to enable implementation on a variety of platforms. This type of coder would find application in wireless digital battlefield communications as well as any type of military system needing transmission of high-resolution imagery over noisy, low-bandwidth channels.